Where and How Did COVID-19 Originate?

            The coronavirus that causes the disease known as COVID-19 has been called the Chinese coronavirus and the Wuhan coronavirus. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders blamed United States Army personnel, but President Donald Trump doubled down on calling it the Chinese coronavirus.


            Before trying to blame the coronavirus on the United States, China said that it originated in a wet market in Wuhan. Authorities from around the world say that the coronavirus came from Wuhan, the capital city of the Hubei province in China. Now there are creditable claims that the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan. “A South China University of Technology report from February says: ‘the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” I understand that there is a wet market located close to a laboratory in Wuhan.


            There is much skepticism about the coronavirus. It seems that more people believe that the coronavirus came from a laboratory than jumped from a bat to a human. There are several reasons why people are looking at a conspiracy out of China. One reason is that we know that communists are almost always lying when they speak. Another reason is that there are about 200 nations dealing with the affects of COVID-19, and they are not happy about it. A third reason is that China’s message keeps changing. They are basically saying, “There is nothing to see here. Move along.” They invite suspicion because they lie. As to the theory about the laboratory in Wuhan, Fred Lucas at The Heritage Foundation said that there are four things that we should know about it. A summary of his ideas is as follows.


            First, the coronavirus is most likely not a biological weapon. Even though this was an early suspicion on the internet, “many experts say there is no credible evidence of that.” Another statement said, “A study in mid-March by Scripps Research, published by the journal Nature Medicine, strongly states that COVID-19 – also referred to as SARS-CoV-2 – follows the natural process similar to related strains of coronavirus.” Still another statement from Michael Osterholm, a “leading expert on bioweapons:” “There is no evidence whatsoever that this is a bioweapon or that it was accidentally released from the Wuhan lab.” He said that the new coronavirus “clearly jumped from an animal species, probably the third week of November to humans.” Another reason for believing that it is not a biological weapon is that there are “far deadlier pathogens” that China could have used that would be more lethal.


            Second, there are doubts about coronavirus coming from the seafood market in Wuhan. The market did not sell bats, but the animals could have been in contact with bats. Authorities in Wuhan “closed the seafood market and disinfected it,” but they did not swab “individual animals and cages” or draw “blood from workers.” “A study published Jan. 24 found that the early coronavirus cases were not connected to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.” In fact, the “study found that the first case was reported Dec. 1, 2019, by an elderly man who had no contact with the Huanan Seafood Market.


            Third, was COVID-19 accidentally caught in the lab and spread? This is a “competing theory” because there are research labs close to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. This theory might have started because researchers from a couple of laboratories “posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness.” COVID-19 could have started from an accident in the laboratory, such as a worker being infected. “Coronaviruses in bats were being studied in Wuhan only at Biosafety Level 2, ‘which provides only minimal protection’” according to Ebright. The highest level of protection is Biosafety Level 4. Ebright said that a video taken of lab workers shows them “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.” The bottom line is, “somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan….” [If this is true, it would explain why China is hiding information.]

Fourth, China is driving suspicions by their words and actions. Suspicion about COVID-19 coming from a lab spread faster than the disease itself. China delayed reporting the disease and stopped an early response from the international community. Later, China accused the U.S. Army of planting the virus in Wuhan.

The coronavirus started in China with the first case being reported on December 1. China hid and/or destroyed evidence and did not alert the world. Consequently, people traveling from China to places all over the world took the disease with them. China must be held accountable for their delayed transmission of information to the nations of the world.